


lovely beyond belief

by magisterequitum



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Childhood Trauma, F/F, Mentioned Black Eagles Students (Fire Emblem), Pining, Post-Time Skip, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-26
Updated: 2019-10-26
Packaged: 2021-01-03 20:43:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21185714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magisterequitum/pseuds/magisterequitum
Summary: Edelgard debates for a moment on continuing back inside, but the moon is bright overhead and the sound of Dorothea’s singing is so nice, so compelling, that her feet move again unbidden like before. Across the grass and around a stone-hedge’s corner, following the low singing till Dorothea appears in full sight.She is not the only one that cannot sleep tonight it appears.





	lovely beyond belief

**Author's Note:**

> This has spoilers for Crimson Flower route as well as Edelgard's childhood story and what was done to her. There are several allusions to the trauma and experimentation that was done to her. 
> 
> I really could not stop thinking about Dorothea singing away Edelgard's nightmares and then I got emotional about these two during wartime.

The nightmares come all too often for Edelgard.

What was done to her, the vivid sensation of their tools, instruments, their _hands_ all over her as they put the second crest inside of her, stitching her back up like some broken doll or toy. Their laughing voices at her whimpers of pain. Their _delight_ when she had lived unlike her siblings. Those dreams are routine, familiar in a way by now. She can chase those away with the promise of tomorrow, of plans, of what she _will _do.

No, the other dreams are worse. The ones that are filled with memories of her siblings, fleeting images of happier times when she could still easily recall the shapes of their faces or their smiles or the sounds of their voices, those Edelgard hates more.

They are reminders of a childhood she will never get back, and each time they fade further and further from her mind. She fears the day she no longer has them at all.

These are the ones that send her feet to the floor and leave her unable to fall easily back to sleep.

Edelgard could if she wanted but make a sound and Hubert would come for her. It would not be the first time, or the fifth, or even the dozenth since what was done to her that he has stayed up with her after a troubling night. He has held her hair back before when she vomited from her night terrors. He has sat with her and swore to see her justice and vision done. Her constant shadow he would appear if she asked.

When the Strike Force and their army had resettled in Garreg Mach recently, they had retook their old dorm rooms as if the five years hadn’t happened. Hubert is still only a wall away.

Edelgard doesn’t ask though.

She dresses neatly with hands that shake slightly, forgoing her armor or the complete Emperor visage, but does wrap her long red cloak around her shoulders before slipping soundlessly from her room in the monastery. She has learned how to be quiet. Quiet kept you alive. Quiet kept the rats from biting at your toes while you were left chained behind to await and see if your sibling taken that morning would return. Quiet has seen her plan and watch and put into motion what must be done.

Edelgard can be quiet.

She doesn’t have a particular place in mind as she moves through the deserted halls but her feet carry her down the corridors. Down stairs that have seen better days than a war that has destroyed parts of Garreg Mach to rubble. Even if they use it for operations now there have been neither the money nor the time to restore what has been broken.

She steers clear of Rhea’s once cathedral. This perhaps is the most ruined portion of the monastery and it brings her petty satisfaction to see it so.

_Never again,_ Edelgard thinks every time she catches sight of the broken stone.

Tonight, she does not linger and finds her feet carrying her outside and into the yard. There are guards about the perimeter and walls but it seems she has done well enough to be on her own. Her kid slippers touch wet grass, cold through thinner material than her heavy boots. Her breath frosts in front of her face. The chill will see her joints hurt if she stays out too long but the bite of the soon-to-be winter air on her face is refreshing.

For a moment, she stands there and lets the night wash over her. The air stings her lungs as she breathes in and out, using one hand to draw her cloak tighter around her, but it soothes her regardless. She can focus on that sensation.

It chases away the lingering nightmare and gradually the tremors, the shaking, lessens also.

Garreg Mach’s courtyard has not fallen into disrepair. The large space is open to the sky and provides them with ample space to practice and train still. Just earlier today the professor had been sparring with Caspar while Lindhardt and Lysithea bent their heads together over a book nearby. Edelgard had only seem them all for a moment, caught between Ferdinand and Hubert trading arguments above her head about where they will march next, but even amidst the war it was nice to have them all here with her.

That they had all sworn to her cause, had stayed by her side, continued to do so. Their faith in her kept her moving as well.

Tipping her face to the sky, Edelgard closes her eyes and breathes in deep. She stays like that for a moment, letting the wind stir the hair fallen out of the loose braid she’d put it in earlier. The long strands tickle her chin.

She inhales and exhales out through her nose. She is fine, she is whole as can be in her state, and dawn approaches.

She's about to turn back to inside when a noise catches her ears – a soft voice raised in song.

Edelgard’s eyes pop open and her head turns towards the sound. Narrowing her eyes, she scrunches her toes in her slippers and concentrates. The sound is familiar and after a moment she can place it. She cannot see the person responsible, but she has heard this voice before in song years ago and now when they march. She has heard it over evening meals, after too many drinks with them all camped around a fire, with fingers stained blood red as its owner attempted to heal someone as best she could.

She knows whom it belongs to.

Dorothea’s voice is as recognizable to Edelgard as her own after so long.

Edelgard debates for a moment on continuing back inside, but the moon is bright overhead and the sound of Dorothea’s singing is so nice, so compelling, that her feet move again unbidden like before. Across the grass and around a stone-hedge’s corner, following the low singing till Dorothea appears in full sight.

Dorothea is stretched out on a stone bench, arms folded along her stomach, and still wearing her dress from earlier. The red skirts splay out towards the grass, a deep red in the night’s darkness. She looks like a character from one of her operas she never fails to bring up even now. She looks like a maiden from one of the stories Edelgard’s sisters used to read to her.

_She looks lovely in the moon’s half-light_, Edelgard thinks.

_Lovely and sad_, she thinks further after another few seconds, because the song she sings sounds low and mournful. Nothing like what Dorothea is known for.

Edelgard has few spare minutes these days, and she knows she could do better, help her former classmates more, but war is war. None of them are the kids they used to be. Edelgard has long since ceased being a child and maybe she never was one, stolen from her so early on, but still. She knows they are all hurting even if they do not want to show it. War hurts in so many ways.

They are all stained red by her doing.

Something of her standing there as she ponders whether to leave Dorothea alone must give her away because she blinks at the sound of Dorothea saying, “Oh, Edie, I didn’t notice you there.”

Thankful that the darkness of the night hides the flush that heats her cheeks, Edelgard clasps her hands in front of her and clears her throat. “I am sorry, Dorothea. Forgive me, I will leave you be.”

Dorothea swings her legs over the bench’s side and sits up. Her hair is unbound and falls past her shoulders. Her smile is bright. “You don’t have to. Were you unable to sleep too?”

An innocuous question but one that still makes Edelgard bristle and hesitate.

Dorothea must see something in her face because she scoots over and gives her a bigger smile. She pats the edge of the bench next to her. “It’s alright. I won’t tell anyone the Emperor can’t sleep,” she says teasingly. It is a jest in good nature and teasing comes so natural to Dorothea.

She has always treated Edelgard this way, even from the very first day at Garreg Mach, and some part of Edelgard has always found it refreshing. Gentle despite the fact that sometimes it sent her heartbeat out of rhythm.

Back then she had told herself that she could not afford any distractions. The plan had been put into motion even then and Edelgard had not believed that anyone would walk it with her other than Hubert. No matter how kind or present or charming her fellow classmates had been.

She has been alone for so long how could she have thought otherwise.

But Dorothea had stayed and Dorothea is here now.

Hands still held in front of her, Edelgard walks forward and takes the seat next to her. She steals a look at Dorothea from the corner of her eye, noticing the purplish bruises beneath her eyes that speak of fatigue and a lack of sleep that cannot be due to just this night alone. A weariness haunts green eyes that normally are so full of life.

She looks away and out towards the yard, the grass, where it is safer for her gaze to be. “I cannot sleep most nights,” she says after a long moment, her voice a quiet whisper even if they are the only ones out here it seems.

Dorothea huffs beside her, a haggard sound that doesn’t sound like her either. It sounds wrong to come from her. “Me too.”

The secret of her nightmares, of her childhood, Edelgard has never shared with anyone beyond Hubert, who knew of course because, and Byleth. It is safer to let Dorothea think her affected by the war, by killing, then to tell. It is not untrue just not to this particular moment. She's not sure she could bring herself to tell this story tonight anyway.

She is afraid, Edelgard realizes, of what Dorothea’s face would look like. She is not strong enough for that. Not tonight.

Instead, Edelgard turns to face her fully and offers, “I am sorry for that.”

Dorothea’s lips quirk at the side. “An apology from the Emperor,” she murmurs. Then, she fists her hands in her lap and her mouth flattens to a thin line. “I asked to be here.”

“I know-”

“I’m not weak, Edie.”

It's Edelgard’s turn to blow out a breath. She reaches out with a gloved hand, because those she did remember to put on, to cover the thin scars over her hands and wrists and forearms, and touches Dorothea’s bared hands. A brief touch and nothing more before she retreats. “I know that. I know you are strong. But still I cannot think that I have harmed you, the others, by pulling you into this.”

_And I do not want you to think me unfeeling, _Edelgard finishes her thought in her own head. As Emperor she must be strong. She must be impervious to emotions. A stalwart and unmovable focus for all to see. She cannot be viewed as anything less. There are always those ready to bite at her heels and take it all. She cannot fail.

Dorothea’s hand reaches out to snatch at one of hers, lacing their fingers together. There’s a fierceness in her grip and in her face, the way her eyebrows pull downward and her green eyes flash. “We chose to be here with you, Edie. To help you. I don’t need you to be sorry for that,” she finishes and then shakes their hands held together.

Edelgard can read the stubbornness in Dorothea’s expression. So too can she tell that Dorothea understands what she means maybe. Best to drop it. Her night has already been spoiled by nightmares; she finds herself unwilling to ruin it any further. She nods and hunches her shoulders into her cloak.

Neither of them it seems wishes to spend tonight talking about what bothers them fully.

“If you would like me to leave you-”

Dorothea cuts her off, squeezing her hand and then releasing it. “No, you can stay. If you want?”

Edelgard stares at her and scrunches her toes within her slippers.

“I would like it if you would,” Dorothea says more confidently. “If we both cannot sleep then why not enjoy each other’s company.”

The last is said with her normal teasing nature and Edelgard again cannot help the blush that she can feel heating her face. She clears her face and looks away from Dorothea’s gaze. “What were you singing? I did not recognize it,” she murmurs with a frown.

“Oh,” Dorothea laughs. “It’s one of the first Manuela assigned to me.”

She should have guessed. Everything she knows of operas is from Dorothea though.

“It sounded sad,” Edelgard says before she can stop herself. She cringes at her bad approximation surely of whatever story the song belongs to. Once, she had been given lessons from tutors on singing and instruments but that had all been before. Such activities ceased to be of any use to her afterwards.

Dorothea hums quietly and nods. “It is not one of the more pleasant ones from that story, no. But where is the drama without that?”

She supposes that is true.

Nudging her with her shoulder, Dorothea draws her attention back fully. Her smile is sly. “Would you like me to sing you a new verse of your song? I have been working on it.”

“No, please-”

“Oh why not, Edie?” Dorothea’s grin turns to a mocking pout there in the half-light of the moon. She's so close that Edelgard can see the lighter bits of brown in her irises close to her pupil. “It is good.”

“I beg you don’t,” Edelgard says and waves a hand between them. She doesn’t think she could keep from laughing if Dorothea chose to sing her Hail Edelgard rendition again.

“Well, if the Emperor is begging me, then I will not. But only for tonight. Another time I will,” Dorothea agrees but scrunches her nose.

“Sing something else, if you would.” Edelgard tries for evenness in her tone, something stricter so as not to give another bit of her away for Dorothea to tease. 

“As my Emperor commands,” Dorothea says lowly. Her smile is bright, chasing away the fatigue on her face.

They stay there on the bench beneath the moon and the clouds and Dorothea sings softly. Not the sad song from before, nor the work in progress of Edelgard’s life, but something else. Still nothing that Edelgard recognizes but it is soothing.

It is a stolen moment before they return to bloodshed and war in the morning, but it is one that Edelgard fights hard to preserve in her mind. Holding Dorothea’s hand there with her eyes closed, she hopes Dorothea is doing the same.

She hopes one day she can give Dorothea a reason to sing something happier.


End file.
